Polanski’s Nation of Pain

The people who are willing to admit Roman Polanski’s greatness as a filmmaker invariably point to his earlier films —  “Knife in the Water,” “Repulsion,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown” — as evidence. In other words, the ones he made before he was charged for — and before he admitted to — the 1977 rape of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer. Maybe they feel that it’s okay to praise movies made before he admitted to being a monster. But to get at Polanski’s true claim to greatness, you have to confront the stubborn empathy and depth of the films he’s made over the last thirty years, the inexplicable paradox of a man whose work showed a deepened understanding of suffering after he had victimized someone else.